Research Interest: 3D printing or additive manufacturing (AM) is a class of technologies that build a 3D object directly from digital models. AM has been widely recognized as a disruptive manufacturing technology for a wide variety of applications including aerospace, defense, biomedical and consumer products. In addition, AM potentially enables revolutionary designs by incorporating complex three-dimensional shapes, heterogeneous material properties and multi-functionalities. Such potentials, if fully realized, would fundamentally change the design and fabrication of future engineering systems.
Our research goal is to advance the understanding of various facets of AM and to promote its wide application in future engineering systems, by integrating both physics-based manufacturing and computation-based design and control techniques. The following are some topics that our team is working on:
(1)Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing technologies development:
--New CAD/design methodology for additive manufacturing;
--Modeling & simulation of various additive manufacturing processes;
--Novel process development for accurate and reliable digital manufacturing and 3D printing.
(2)Innovative product and system development by combining the advantages of traditional manufacturing and additive manufacturing technologies.

Minimum time commitment in hours per week: 5

Qualifications of a Student:

Brief Summary of what is expected from the student: Our multi-disciplinary research and training require bridging theoretical, computational and practical knowledge with systematic thinking. Our research group welcome engineering students who are passionate on exploring new areas, actively participating in lab work, and integrating knowledge in multiple discipline.

You would join an active advanced manufacturing laboratory with other graduate research assistants under my supervision. You would assist with research activities including setting up prototype machines/prototype 3D printers, developing control algorithms and CAD/CAM methods, conducting physical experiments, collecting and help analyzing experimental data. You'll be expected to participate in various aspects of the research work and to attend bi-weekly lab meetings. We train you for all tasks. This experience will allow you to understand what research in advanced manufacturing is all about, and help you decide whether you might like to pursue it later in your career. If research is for you, then this experience will give you opportunities to publish papers and prepare you well for graduate school, but even if you aren't interested in graduate school, you will earn extensive lab skills and hands-on experience which would be very helpful for locating a job in industry.